"Connect an employee is an initiative developed by BOCRA to encourage Government, Parastatals and Private sector to connect their employees to residential broadband internet. This includes employers paying for monthly residential internet of their employees as an incentive/ benefit that will allow them to work from home.
This initiative was developed in 2014 with minimum set internet speed for residential connectivity at 2mbps. However, in 2020 the speeds were revised considering changes in market trends with demand for more data hungry applications as well as to carter for working from homes. The newly revised speed is minimum of 10mbps which will allows for virtual meetings, continuous use of multiple applications and devices connected to the internet whilst giving the user best reception.
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https://www.bocra.org.bw/

• Botswana

• The unemployed

"This initiative is replicable. When it started in 2014, the it was mainly focused on Government Ministries and Parastatals to connect their employees to broadband internet. By 2018 a total of 1276 employees was connected by the institutions mentioned above.
As time goes on, in 2020 the initiative was extended to the private sector to connect their employees to residential broadband service. The initiative was welcomed by the private sector and expectations are that many employees will be connected to broadband internet when BOCRA undertake a survey to gauge level of connected employees to residential internet in 2021.
Other countries can copy this model and mandate employers to connect their employees to residential broadband internet as this is a benefit to both parties. Also this ensures that all people are digitally included regardless of place of stay."

"As more people are connected to the internet, this will drive down the price and cost of internet prices through economies of scale. In addition, when employers connect their employees they get volume discounts from the service providers hence the service gets cheaper and its easily affordable to them.
Also in Botswana the government has allocated funding for rollout of fiber for national backbone and last mile connection to selected parts of the country mainly in cities and towns. This has assisted in driving internet prices significantly considering that infrastructure makes bulk of total cost hence this government intervention helped in reducing costs of internet connection and making it affordable to most institutions.
Institutions have also seen that virtual training, workshops and meetings makes it cheaper for companies and save a lot from money that could have been used for venue, catering and transport."

This initiative promotes employment creation for workers that work at service providers and also additional staff that can be engaged by different employers on short term basis as e- workers. There will also be an increase in e- employers that will allow people to work from everywhere and contribute positively to the economy. This also creates opportunity to raise productivity and improvement in business processes. People will be connected without excluding others as expectations are that family members that include students can also benefit from the initiative through a connected employee of an organisation. This will generally improve productivity of the country and make work easy.